Bastion (naval)
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A bastion in
naval strategy Naval strategy is the planning and conduct of war at sea, the naval equivalent of military strategy on land. Naval strategy, and the related concept of maritime strategy, concerns the overall strategy for achieving victory at sea, including the ...
is a heavily defended area of water in which friendly naval forces can operate safely. Typically, that area will be partially enclosed by friendly shoreline, defended by
naval mine A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, any ...
s, monitored by sensors, and heavily patrolled by surface,
submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...
, and air forces.


Soviet and Russian Naval Bastions

The bastion became an important strategy for the ballistic missile submarine fleets of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
during the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
. The
Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...
was made a bastion for the Soviet Red Banner Northern Fleet, and the
Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk ( rus, Охо́тское мо́ре, Ohótskoye móre ; ja, オホーツク海, Ohōtsuku-kai) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands ...
for the
Soviet Pacific Fleet , image = Great emblem of the Pacific Fleet.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Russian Pacific Fleet Great emblem , dates = 1731–present , country ...
, both of which remain important to the
Russian Northern Fleet Severnyy flot , image = Great emblem of the Northern Fleet.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Northern Fleet's great emblem , start_date = June 1, 1733; Sov ...
and the
Russian Pacific Fleet , image = Great emblem of the Pacific Fleet.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Russian Pacific Fleet Great emblem , dates = 1731–present , country ...
. The
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
had (and, even more so,
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
now has) limited access to the world's oceans: her northern coast is ice-bound at least the majority of the year, and access to the Atlantic requires transiting the
GIUK gap The GIUK gap (sometimes written G-I-UK) is an area in the northern Atlantic Ocean that forms a naval choke point. Its name is an acronym for ''Greenland, Iceland'', and the ''United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northe ...
; much of her eastern coast is also ice-bound and requires moderately close approaches to either
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
or
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
; travel from her southern ports involves transiting first the
Bosphorus The Bosporus Strait (; grc, Βόσπορος ; tr, İstanbul Boğazı 'Istanbul strait', colloquially ''Boğaz'') or Bosphorus Strait is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul in northwestern Tu ...
and
Dardanelles The Dardanelles (; tr, Çanakkale Boğazı, lit=Strait of Çanakkale, el, Δαρδανέλλια, translit=Dardanéllia), also known as the Strait of Gallipoli from the Gallipoli peninsula or from Classical Antiquity as the Hellespont (; ...
, and then either the
Strait of Gibraltar The Strait of Gibraltar ( ar, مضيق جبل طارق, Maḍīq Jabal Ṭāriq; es, Estrecho de Gibraltar, Archaic: Pillars of Hercules), also known as the Straits of Gibraltar, is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Medi ...
or the
Suez Canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
. The Soviet Navy originally attempted to directly contest with the navies of
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
for control of the blue-water ocean. As the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
progressed, however, it became clear that the Soviets could not win a toe-to-toe fight in the deep water, and the information sold to the Soviets by the Walker spy ring in the 1980s made it clear that the ballistic missile submarines, in particular, were very unlikely to be able to carry out their nuclear attack missions. Realizing their vulnerability, the Soviets adopted a two-level approach. They armed their older, noisier, and less reliable "second generation" ballistic missile submarines with shorter-range nuclear weapons and deployed them as close as possible to the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
.
Soviet submarine K-219 ''K-219'' was a Project 667A ''Navaga''-class ballistic missile submarine ( NATO reporting name Yankee I) of the Soviet Navy. It carried 16 R-27U liquid-fuel missiles powered by UDMH with nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), and equipped with either 32 ...
, which suffered a catastrophic explosion and fire off
Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...
on 3 October 1986, was one such boat. Meanwhile, they used the information provided by Walker to build both dramatically improved attack boats such as the , as well as more-survivable "boomers" such as the armed with increasingly accurate and long-range missiles. Then they held those "third-generation" boats close to home, patrolling only near and under the Arctic ice cap. To secure the bastions, they also built large numbers of ''Sovremennyy''- and s, whose primary mission was anti-submarine barrier and picket patrol; furthermore, the Soviet carrier-building projects were dedicated to defense of these bastions as well rather than independent strike groups, with Moskva-class limited to anti-submarine
helicopters A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
, Kiev-class carrying
VTOL A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-win ...
fighters as well as helicopters and a sizeable array of weapons (hence the designation "aircraft-carrying cruiser"), and, finally, Kuznetsov class "heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser" fielding fixed-wing interceptors. The
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
practiced penetrating these bastions; one such attempt resulted in the 20 March 1993 collision between USS ''Grayling'' (SSN-646) and K-407 ''Novomoskovsk'', a ''Delfin''-class ballistic missile submarine. The collision was inadvertent and potentially catastrophic, but did demonstrate that US attack submarines were able to get rather near their intended prey.


Chinese Naval Bastions

There are indications that the Chinese
PLAN A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal. F ...
is adopting the concept as well, fortifying the
Bohai Sea The Bohai Sea () is a marginal sea approximately in area on the east coast of Mainland China. It is the northwestern and innermost extension of the Yellow Sea, to which it connects to the east via the Bohai Strait. It has a mean depth of a ...
for use by its growing number of ballistic missile submarines.


United States Naval Bastions

In the sense that a bastion is set up to protect the naval forces themselves rather than a land feature (''e.g.'' the
Panama Canal The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit ...
), the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
has never made significant use of the bastion concept.


References

{{Reflist Naval warfare